Monday, 31 August 2015

All done at the Edinburgh Book Festival! Two lovely events for Lost on Mars, alongsideRoy GillandTeri Terry, both talking about their own wonderful books. Sold out audiences at both gigs! And a sold out lecture on Frankenstein and Brenda, too! Lots of fun hanging out in the Authors' Yurt, drawing and drinking endless coffee - and bumping into old friends and making new ones. Jeremy looked after me the whole time brilliantly as ever, along with Panda. I met David Almondagain after years and years. I met the charming Piers Moore Ede for the first time, and I'm looking forward to reading his travel books - especially the one about hunting wild honey across the world. It was smashing to have some time with Roy and Russ, and then Dave Fitch last night. Also last night, I met one of my all-time musical heroes, and heard him play a twenty minute magical set in the Spiegel tent. I've been a fan of Nick Currie aka Momus for twenty five years and it was amazing to bump into him. (More amazing, when I introduced myself at the buffet table he replied, 'With a silent g?')

Monday, 17 August 2015

We've done this wonderful holiday a few times before. The first week in August - and several hot, sunny days wandering around in Paris. Usually parks and galleries and cafes. Usually I do a little drawing - but mostly in the corners of the ruled exercise books that I'm writing in. But this time - during my year-of-drawing-every-day - I set about the business properly. I had all my paints and brushes with me and was intent on catching something of the atmosphere of the days we spent around Notre Dame and St Germain. Here are a few examples of what I got up to.

The colours of Paris turn out to be lime green, sandstone yellow and lilac blue. Everything comes mixed from those few shades. Apart from the blood-orange red of the cafe awnings.

Monday, 3 August 2015

When I embarked on my year of drawing one of the places I really wanted to somehow capture was Canal Street and the Gay Village. Throughout 2015 I've made various pictures of the sights and scenes, in and out of the cafes and bars of this legendary locale. The Molly House on Richmond Street is currently hosting an exhibition of some of my favourite pictures. These original paintings will be up for the whole of August, right through Pride and are available to buy at an extremely good price. (Two have already sold, even as they were going up!)